
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, March 9, 1946.
“PFFTHFF,” said Frise.
“Which?” I inquired.
“Thipff,” said Jim. “Thoop! Something blew in my mouth. Felt like a pigeon feather or something…”
“Just a little soot,” I assured him. “There’s black on your lip.”
“Pffthff,” repeated Jimmie, wiping his mouth.
“Here, pay attention to your driving!” I warned. “You’re steering all over the street.”
“Well, if you had something blown in your mouth,” complained Jim, “you wouldn’t like it either.”
“Aw, just a flake of soot,” I submitted. “From one of the big factory chimneys.”
“It felt as big as a Plymouth Rock feather1,” said Jim, still wiping.
“You can’t be fussy,” I philosophized, “and live in cities. It’s a wonder more things don’t blow into our mouths. Worse than hen feathers.”
“Doubtless,” said Jim, winding up the car window, “we do have a lot of pretty gruesome things blown in our mouths and noses without ever knowing it. When you look at these city streets, in the month of March, with all the accumulated filth of four months of winter beginning to lie revealed, it makes you think, eh?”
“What careless, dirty, sloppy creatures human beings are,” I mused. “Tossing away cigarette butts, packages, candy wrappers. Airily flinging away on to the public domain, any junk they have no use for…”
“Look up there!” pointed Jim.
From the upstairs window of a house we were passing, a woman was leaning out and beating a large mop against the bricks, down wind. A trail of dust, hair, and other light debris floated in a cloud into the public air, and into whatever windows were down wind.
“We’re really,” I submitted, “not much advanced since the days of Queen Elizabeth, when everybody just opened the upstairs windows and dumped the sewage and the garbage out into the street. That was what gutters were for, in the old days.”.
“What’s the difference, actually,” added Jim, “between a lady of Tudor times dumping the slop pail out the upstairs window, and that lady back there beating out her mop into the open street?”
“Thipff,” I said. “Thpooie! Jim, do you see anything…?”
I leaned out so Jim could look at my mouth.
“I just felt something,” I said, “blow into my mouth then. Do you see any hair or wool or anything?”
Jim slowed the car and examined me.
“Just a little soot, by the look of it,” he said.
“Thank goodness,” I cried. “I half fancied I had caught something that woman was shaking out of her mop. Thpew! Fffptt!”
I got out my hankie and wiped off my tongue.
“In days to come2,” asserted Jim, “when public health and sanitation is as well looked after as it should be, these days we live in will be regarded with exactly the same horror with which we look back on Henry the Eighth’s time. When you think of our garbage wagons plodding up the windy streets, with the boys hoisting up those battered, ramshackle containers we know as garbage cans…”
“Leaving a trail behind them,” I cut in, “of little bits of garbage, dirt and filth along the streets, to be rolled over and squashed by traffic, to be ground into particles, to dry and be picked up by the breeze and wafted far and wide.”
“The city of the future,” declared Jimmie, “will supply the householder with official cartons, sanitary cartons, in which all refuse from sweepings to food waste will be placed and sealed. These sealed containers will be picked up every other day by travelling incinerators which will burn the refuse under intense electric heat…”
“Haw,” I snorted, “you mean atomic atomizers3. A neat little truck with a small quantity of atomic energy, which will consume the refuse so that not even any smoke or steam is injected into the public air.”
“We’ll Lose Our Smokes”
“The public air!” cried Jim. “What a perfect expression. The public air. Air is about the only thing that is truly public. You can’t confine it. Or if you do, it goes bad. It isn’t like land or water, which people can own or control. Air belongs to all men alike. And there ought to be some recognition of that fact. Anybody who pollutes the air should be taken in hand as a public enemy.”
“Well, when you toss a cigarette butt out the car window,” I submitted, “as you did just now, you are a public enemy. That cigarette butt is fragile, and the nearest thing to dust. In a few minutes, under the rush of this morning traffic, that cigarette will be ground under a car’s wheel and pulverized. The wisp of paper will float off in the breeze. The scattered little grains of tobacco will join the indescribable and complex mass of dirt and dust that swirls forever over the earth. Any germs from your mouth that might have adhered to the wet end of the butt will be set free to carry, infection…”
“I haven’t any infection!” protested Jimmie.
“How do you know?” I inquired. “It takes 48 hours for the infection of the common cold to assert itself in you. How do you know you haven’t got the mumps, quincy, croup, or even leprosy and don’t know it yet? But you tossed that cigarette butt out into the public air as cheerfully and thoughtlessly as that woman back there was beating out her dirty mop!”
“Cigarette butts are the least of our worries,” came back Jim. “It’s far worse things we should put our minds on.”
“No, Jim,” I countered. “We’ve got to start with ourselves. We’ve got to stop tossing cigarette butts into the public air before we begin trying to correct the offences of others.”
“Listen,” said Jim, slowing the car he could argue better, “if we start with cigarette butts, the next thing somebody is going to argue about is smoking4. They are going to say that it is a public offence to fill the public air with cigarette smoke. That is the thin edge of the wedge. Once you start reforming, somebody comes along with a better reform. We begin with cigarette butts. Somebody comes along and takes away our smokes.”
“Common sense is all I suggest,” I asserted. “It stands to reason a little tobacco smoke, puffed into the air and vanishing instantly, is far different thing from a wet, sticky cigarette butt flung out at random into the public domain.”
“Common sense,” decreed Jim, “does not enter into the realm of public affairs. If you are going into the reform business, I warn you, be very careful where you start.”
My eyes were caught, at that instant, by a startling spectacle. We had passed out of the residential district and were entering the downtown area. And from the tall chimney of a factory, right ahead of us, there suddenly billowed up the biggest, blackest, oiliest boil of smoke I ever saw. It was like an explosion of smoke. And it fairly wallowed out of the tall stack.
“Whoa, Jim!” I cried, seizing his arm. “Slow down! Just take a look at that smoke!”
Jim ran to the curb and stopped. We sat and gazed at the spectacle. Against the gray March sky, the jet black smoke poured almost like a liquid. In vast, fat coils, it rolled thickly, heavily. It created a giant smudge across the sky and dissipated itself slowly. The buildings beyond were blocked from view.
“For Pete’s sake!” breathed Jimmie.
“In this day and age,” I enunciated. “Talk about capitalistic insolence!”
“Why,” cried Jim, “that’s an absolute outrage. Fouling the air. Blackening the property for miles around. An injury not merely to the public health but to private property!! Something ought to be done!”
“The owner of that factory,” I declared hotly, “is the perfect example of the lawless adventurer. He could put a smoke abater on that chimney…”
“He doesn’t even need that,” interrupted Jim. “All he has to do is feed the furnace properly. A little coal at a time. Build up a fire, little by little, adding a little coal at a time. And the fire consumes the smoke.”
“Maybe it isn’t the capitalist’s fault at all,” I suggested. “Eh? Maybe it’s the fault of some lazy beggar of a fireman5. A proletariat.”
“Proletarian,” corrected Jim. “Some lazy proletarian who can’t be bothered attending a fire properly, but comes along once every few hours and dumps a whole load of coal on.”
“And wastes the best of the coal,” I agreed, “by sending it up the chimney in smoke!”
“Correct,” cried Jim. “What is all that black smoke coiling so oily into the air? It’s pure chemical gas, full of carbon and valuable heating elements, being wasted in the air.”
“Let’s Do Something!”
“A waste to his employer,” I summed up, “and an offence against the public. Jim! Let’s act. Enough of this talk. Let’s act!”
“How?” demanded Jim.
“Let’s go in,” I said, “and catch that fireman red-handed. Let’s drag him out to take a look at what he’s doing with that chimney. And then, let’s tell him a thing or two about wasting fuel and ruining the public health and damaging private property all around the neighborhood.”
Jim glanced at his watch.
“We should be at the office,” he said.
“It won’t take 10 minutes,” I protested. “Jim, if we have the public interest at heart, we’ve got to DO something about it. There are enough people willing to talk about it. Let us DO something!”
“First let us speak to the manager,” suggested Jim.
We drove down and parked opposite the factory. We walked across the street, dodging the morning business rush traffic, and entered the front office doorway.
There was only a secretary in view, taking off her hat.
The building was icy cold.
“Is the manager about?” I inquired.
“He won’t be down till around 10,” said the young lady, shivering and rubbing her hands.
“Is there a foreman or superintendent we could see?” suggested Jim.
“No,” said the young lady, “we aren’t back in production yet, you see? A skeleton staff comes on around 10 o’clock. We’re re- organizing the plant…”
“I’ll tell you,” I said very kindly, “we’re a committee of citizens interested in public health and such, things, see? And we noticed the awful clouds of smoke, terrible black smoke, coming from the smoke-stack of this factory.”
“I see,” said the young lady, drawing herself up very stiff.
“We don’t wish to make trouble, of course,” I added, “but if we could just see the fireman, whoever he is. The janitor?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t the authority,” said the young lady coldly.
“Still, you wouldn’t put anything in our way.” I submitted, “if we just dropped in and had a chat with the fireman? We wish merely to explain to him that he is not only creating a public nuisance, a public menace, but he is also wasting his employer’s fuel. If he stoked the fire a little at a…”
“Take that door to the left,” said the young lady, rubbing her hands and hunching up her shoulders.
The door led down a staircase to the basement. We could hear furnace sounds along the passage-way. And we walked along to the furnace-room where we discovered an elderly gent with a shovel patting ashes into ash cans.
The furnace was one of those old-fashioned monsters set in a pit.
“Good-day,” we said pleasantly.
“Good-day to you,” agreed the old boy, relaxing.
“Look,” I said, “you’ll excuse us for coming in on you like this. But we only have your interest at heart.”
“Life insurance?” asked the old boy.”
“No,” said Jim. “Smoke. Do you realize what a terrific smoke barrage you are creating? Will you come outside a minute and take a look at your chimney?”
“Aw,” said the old boy, “run along!”
“Pardon me,” I began firmly and loudly, for the old boy was making a racket with his shovel. “We haven’t seen the manager of this place yet. We’ve come to you, first. It’s for your own good. We happen to be a committee of citizens…”
“Self-appointed,” put in Jim, not too loud.
“…a committee of citizens interested,” I pursued, “in public health.”
“Run along, now,” said the old boy, commencing on the ashes again.
“I suggest,” I shouted above the racket, “that you at least listen to what we have to say. Otherwise, we will take steps that will astonish you.”
That always gets them.
“What’ll you do?” he demanded belligerently.
“Are you aware of the smoke nuisance you are creating?” I came back.
“I’ve heard little else,” he declared, “for 30 years.”
“Do you realize,” I insinuated, “that for 30 years you have been advertising to the whole world that you are a punk fireman?”
“Is that so?” he scoffed.
“Only a dope,” I pursued, “would heap coal on a fire so that half of it goes up in smoke.”
“Is-that-so?” he admired.
“If you lay the coal on,” I informed him, “a little at a time, so that the fire builds up and consumes the gases, little by little, there is no smoke.”
“You don’t say?” he sneered, wide-eyed.
“May I demonstrate?” I asked politely, ignoring his bad manners.
“Certainly,” he replied, handing me the shovel.
I removed my coat. I seized the shovel. I tripped open the fire door. I took a moderate scoop of coal.
“Observe now,” I said. “Watch how this small shovelful is instantly seized upon by the fire, the gases consumed, and the fuel embodied immediately, as it were, in the fire.”
“Well, well, well,” said the old boy, relaxing back into his chair.
At which moment, we heard footsteps of the stairs and a man who looked like a gas-meter reader, with a small ledger under arm, appeared at the furnace-room door.
“I warned you, Peters,” he said sharply.
“What can I do?” said the old boy, getting hurriedly out of his chair. “When citizens’ committees keep coming down and showing me how to fire my own furnace.. .”
“What’s this?” said the stranger.
“Don’t blame me,” said the old boy, Peters. “Blame these guys. I’m tending my furnace, when they come down and interfere. They insist on stoking her…”
“Peters,” said the stranger severely, “never before have such billows of smoke come from your furnace. We’ve had 40 complaints inside the last 20 minutes.”
“You’re a Menace”
“Am I stoking it?” demanded Peters sadly. “Or is this little guy?”
“What are you doing here?” demanded the gas-meter man bitterly.
“I came down-we came down,” I expostulated, “when we saw those clouds of smoke, to protest, and to show this man how to feed a furnace properly…”
“Yah, that’s their story,” said old Mr. Peters.
“I think, gentlemen,” said the stranger acidly, “if you will leave matters of this kind in the hands of the civic authorities…”
“We didn’t make that smoke,” I stated pleasantly. “Why, I had only laid on a couple of small shovels…”
“Good-morning, gentlemen,” said the stranger, opening his book.
“Come on,” muttered Jimmie, helping me into my coat.
So we stamped upstairs.
“You see how it is,” said Jim.
“I didn’t know there was a civic department working on smoke,” I protested.
“Probably the health department,” said Jim. “Or maybe the police.”
We crossed over into the car. Jim started her and gave her the gun. We pushed out into the traffic.
At King St. a motorcycle cop appeared beside us. He rode level and then drew ahead, his hand up.
“He’s signalling you, Jim,” I warned.
We drew into the curb.
The cop parked in front of us and walked back.
Jim ran down the car window for him.
“Are you aware,” he asked pleasantly, “that there is a by-law referring to excessive exhaust smoke from motor cars?”
“Eh?” cried Jim.
“Do you know,” continued the cop cheerfully, “that this old stoneboat of yours kicks up so much smoke from the exhaust that you are apt to cause a fatal accident any day?”
“Smoke?” queried Jim, giving me an agonized side glance.
“I came up behind you.” said the cycle cop, “just when you pulled away from the curb a couple of blocks back, and I couldn’t see my handle-bars in front of me. I tell you, you’re a menace to traffic. How about getting that exhaust looked at? How about getting some gaskets? How about checking your oil consumption? Eh?”
“Okay,” said Jim, “okay, officer, I’ll attend to it right away.”
So we drove on to the parking lot, not even thinking.
Editor’s Notes:
- A Plymouth Rock is a type of chicken. ↩︎
- Clean air and anti-pollution laws were still to come. With so many coal furnaces (including in people’s homes), and all of the smoking, the air must have been not very pleasant. ↩︎
- People still had great hope for atomic energy at the time. ↩︎
- There were few smoking restrictions at the time, as you could smoke in most public spaces. ↩︎
- In this context, the fireman is the one who stokes the furnace with coal. ↩︎